DEDICATED AV HUNTER

[Lazarus]

So I was thinking of making an AV hunter,

 

my thoughts first go to RAD MELEE,.. can slot all 3 -res procs, and RAD SIPHON make a great CRITICAL STRIKE proc. attack.

 

as for armors I was looking at fire BURN is awesome, I was also looking at bio.

 

anyway thought,..maybe im missing something

 

thx

[Krimson]

You want to have a strong single target attack chain for AVs. The aura from Fire Armor is great for clearing mobs but you might benefit more from a secondary like Bio. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

Radiation Armor.  Lots of debuffs, including the regen debuff from Radiation Therapy.

[Lazarus]

4 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Radiation Armor.  Lots of debuffs, including the regen debuff from Radiation Therapy.

 BIO has the same debuff just with a 90 sec recharge instead of 60.

[biostem]

For me, the biggest issues with AV fights, (especially prolonged ones), are running out of end and lacking a heal.  I really like radiation armor because particle shielding grants a significant recovery buff, which can easily be made permanent.  It also has a good heal and gamma boost further enhances your recovery and regeneration.  As for which melee set to take, I think you have a lot of options, but I'd tend to avoid S/L or sets that lack any real heavy-hitting ST attacks...

[hakurr]

just for thoughts don't forget about Stone Armor. and take a look at Energy Melee with the health that stone gives you and the regen and endurance management you can really take advantage of Energy Melee's big st damage

[Zect]

I think your build goals need more elaboration. Under what conditions do you want to solo AVs - are insps allowed, are temps allowed, how about lore pets, etc.

 

There's a big difference in AV soloing to enlarge your e-penis and AV soloing because I'm triple boxing this week's WST.

[Yomo Kimyata]

3 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 BIO has the same debuff just with a 90 sec recharge instead of 60.

 

I'm seeing it as -150% for radiation v. -100% for bio, plus a faster recharge.  

[Thraxen]

I don’t think I’ve ever tried really. But db/sr is tricked out with tons of procs and two -res. Energy/inv does great st damage. Lvl 50 or 54?  Would psy melee be good?  How do you test?

[SomeGuy]

Do not do Rad Melee, Electrical, Ice, Kinetic, Dark, or Staff. Pick a secondary with a taunt aura.  AVs will run. That's bad for DPS. Pretty much any other primary is good for this. I can't say anything good or negative about Psi since I haven't done a deep dive on it. Same with Savage.

 

Fire Armor with it's added damage is a smart choice for deleting things, but it is SQUISHY as all get out and has no taunt aura. You will try to strategically res with an awaken, a lot, while your target is running around if you pick Fire Armor.

 

I will insist that you choose a secondary with a taunt aura if you are solo AV hunting. Out of the armors that have a taunt aura and help do good damage, you are going to have Bio and Rad in that order for damage. Now Bio is not as tough as Rad, but if you allow yourself insp and temps, that won't matter much. Bio is going to do gobs of damage.

 

Rad/Fire seems like a recipe to make a runner nightmare. It sounds amazing for AOE on paper, and I'm sure it is, but if something is out of your DPS range then you are doing zero DPS. And no taunt aura makes things run away from damage.

 

Go see what I mean with Rommy in the ITF. If you attack him without a taunt aura he will do his Usain Bolt impression and run all over the map. Have fun re-doing all the damage you just lost because the runner AV regenned all it's lost HP when running all over the place.

[Lazarus]

3 hours ago, SomeGuy said:

Rad/Fire seems like a recipe to make a runner nightmare. It sounds amazing for AOE on paper, and I'm sure it is, but if something is out of your DPS range then you are doing zero DPS. And no taunt aura makes things run away from damage.

 I see what you mean,..the other idea I had is a FIREMELEE/BIO,..

 

I also intend to use RING OF FIRE epic,..so no av running.

 

Also why is RAD a bad melee set?

Edited April 25 by Lazarus

[BrandX]

Not sure on Fire Melee, but Energy Melee seems like it would be a set with enough solid DPS you wouldn't need to worry about proccing out the attacks for AV hunting DPS, so could slot it to focus more on the set bonuses and survival.

[hakurr]

10 hours ago, SomeGuy said:

 

 

I will insist that you choose a secondary with a taunt aura if you are solo AV hunting. Out of the armors that have a taunt aura and help do good damage, you are going to have Bio and Rad in that order for damage. Now Bio is not as tough as Rad, but if you allow yourself insp and temps, that won't matter much. Bio is going to do gobs of damage.

 

 

don't over look Stone Armor i believe Rooted has a built in taunt and Brimstone adds to damage of all your attacks stone is very solid with its defense and add alot of health and end mitigation the only down fall is low DDR but you can use incarnates or couple purples to mitigate that for the AV fight.  

[One IV All]

3 hours ago, hakurr said:

don't over look Stone Armor i believe Rooted has a built in taunt and Brimstone adds to damage of all your attacks stone is very solid with its defense and add alot of health and end mitigation the only down fall is low DDR but you can use incarnates or couple purples to mitigate that for the AV fight.  

Unfortunately, Stone Armor loses its taunt on Scrappers. If it had it, I feel like it’d have everything 😂

[BrandX]

4 hours ago, hakurr said:

don't over look Stone Armor i believe Rooted has a built in taunt and Brimstone adds to damage of all your attacks stone is very solid with its defense and add alot of health and end mitigation the only down fall is low DDR but you can use incarnates or couple purples to mitigate that for the AV fight.  

 

Besides no taunt, not sure it would need DDR that much and not all AVs do -Defense

[SomeGuy]

20 hours ago, hakurr said:

don't over look Stone Armor i believe Rooted has a built in taunt and Brimstone adds to damage of all your attacks stone is very solid with its defense and add alot of health and end mitigation the only down fall is low DDR but you can use incarnates or couple purples to mitigate that for the AV fight.  

 

No taunt aura with this set. Yes, it does good damage. Really good actually, but if things are running you aren't doing damage to them. I have put a lot of time in to this set. I just can't do sets without taunt auras. If a lack of taunt aura isn't a bother, then yea. I'd absolutely go with this set.

 

 @Lazarus

My personal opinion is Rad Melee is actually a very good melee set. I just wouldn't use it for AV hunting. It has OK single target DPS (better than Dark Melee...by a lot actually). Really good AOE. There really aren't a lot of sets (primaries or secondaries) I personally view as bad. Unless it's Staff or Regen. Then they're bad.

 

Fire Melee got significantly buffed. It is easily top tier ST DPS now. If you enjoy the set then you are going to get a lot of performance out of it. If you go this route you will definitely not be holding yourself back performance wise.

 

 

Basically, you can't go wrong with any of these primaries if you want. The difference is so slight that you won't care as long as you are enjoying it. And these personal #s can all go back-forth with each other with RNG or latency.

 

*RoF is Ring of Fire and Char is...Char.

Edited April 26 by SomeGuy

[Lazarus]

At (1:06) the SM/BIO

 

is the savage or stone melee?    out of curiosity how is STONE MELEE for scrappers?? 

[SomeGuy]

7 hours ago, Lazarus said:

At (1:06) the SM/BIO

 

is the savage or stone melee?    out of curiosity how is STONE MELEE for scrappers?? 

 

 

Stone Melee. Good question. Going to edit that for clarity.

 

For scraps? I enjoy it a lot. It feels pretty darn chonky and has fun soft CC. It was the first primary I used to solo 1* Aeon. You can edit the power looks to not do the hammers if you want. I changed it so it's all fisting.

[One IV All]

2 hours ago, SomeGuy said:

 

 

Stone Melee. Good question. Going to edit that for clarity.

 

For scraps? I enjoy it a lot. It feels pretty darn chonky and has fun soft CC. It was the first primary I used to solo 1* Aeon. You can edit the power looks to not do the hammers if you want. I changed it so it's all fisting.

I like being able to change it up to the fist animations. I feel it opens up a lot of options thematically.

[SomeGuy]

3 hours ago, One IV All said:

I like being able to change it up to the fist animations. I feel it opens up a lot of options thematically.

 

I really enjoy fisting things.

[Sanguinesun]

On 4/25/2024 at 6:01 AM, Lazarus said:

So I was thinking of making an AV hunter,

 

my thoughts first go to RAD MELEE,.. can slot all 3 -res procs, and RAD SIPHON make a great CRITICAL STRIKE proc. attack.

 

as for armors I was looking at fire BURN is awesome, I was also looking at bio.

 

anyway thought,..maybe im missing something

 

thx

 

1. I recommend reading up on how the -res procs work in relation to application via same or different powers.

 

2. AV's vary in their resistances/defences as well of course their attacks and your required defenses and resistances. As a general rule on a scrapper then that you're attempting to make an all around various AV killing centric toon, you wanting to make sure you cover most bases.  Sets like bio will not be adequate in terms of your protective needs.  Rad armor is not only capable of being well resistance setup for most all(except cold will be your only hole really) damage types but you'll also have multiple damage mitigating and offensive options in the set as well.  

 

But another factor is, what does others on your team bring to or compliment/supplement your choices?  Most cases on a team, you're needs are far less to keep you alive as well as to help you take down collectively an AV.

 

If you're soloing, then you need every ounce of protections and mitigations as possible in addition to strong single target melee and other supplemental things to help mitigate an AV's capabilities such as regen etc of course.    Some suggestions thus far arent necessarily taking this more into account.

 

3. Fire's armor set has more pronounced holes that you will require alot more sacrificing of damage and other mitigations to round out your resistances as well as to give you defense.  Again if on a team then it wont matter as much.  Dont hyper focus on burn as over the years its received various nerfs and as well it has a flee component built into the ability unfortunately as well.  

 

4.

On 4/25/2024 at 6:50 AM, Lazarus said:

 BIO has the same debuff just with a 90 sec recharge instead of 60.

 

Its less and bio has significant holes as mentioned above.  Remember too while in offensive stance, you take a hit to your resistances and while in defensive you take a hit to your damage.  Therefore, its better in groups where your holes can be patched by others and you can run around on offensive, only flipping to defensive stance as needed.

 

5. 

On 4/27/2024 at 7:29 PM, Lazarus said:

At (1:06) the SM/BIO

 

is the savage or stone melee?    out of curiosity how is STONE MELEE for scrappers?? 

 

You should keep in mind that the times he's sported there are not the best times a scrapper can do on pylons. There's even a video and someone who did it on a DB/Bio in well under 50 seconds.  See this thread's page here where Ston posts the build/attack chain and a vid here:

 

 

But again, dont be fooled.   Its just a dps check not a dynamic situation of an AV.  Dual Blades is lethal damage focused as well which is more resisted by AV's in addition to smashing(but again --depends-- on the av too as some are going to be more resistance to other damage types.)  

 

So, in general, you cannot make an all AV hunter without having some AV's resistant to what ever damage type you choose.  Just make what is both damage and survivability(and that includes endurance strongly too as AV's are endurance fights) balanced and effective.   But again remember there is no one "best".  That is 100% an intentional design feature by the original devs for making characters.  But not having certified cookie cutter builds and variations being so bogged down in the minutae of details, it kept people trying different things(and thus paying for their subscriptions.)   Then any time people -did- start to come up with "this beats all" sorts of things, that's when "adjustments(nerfs)" tended (and still do) happen.

 

This isnt to say that you cant build something effective, its just that you need to frame it better within the context of what your goal(s) are.

 

Also circling back to pylon/single target flatfooted thinking in fights, remember that not all AV fights are that either.  Some have mobs/summon mobs to fight/distract and more.

 

6.  Ston also has a thread regarding trapdoor times(that's getting through mobs then to a boss at the end that can be a challenge) and its times then start to show very different considerations:

 

 

 

You'll then notice in that thread that the top scrapper melee sets start to shift in time considerations vs Someguy's stated pylon times show.   This is because neither are encompassing the spectrum of what one encounters with fighting different AV's but that at least the trapdoor mission is accounting for the dynamics of encounters up to and including the boss fight and its mechanics.

 

 They are also focused on a slight misdirection of -Times- for defeats. Time inst necesarily an accurate metric for all CoH related defeating considerations. Remember there are builds by other AT's that can take down AV's with little challenge in terms of survivability too but at the requirement of patience.  There's a few people on the forums that have devoted tons of youtube videos to their feather-in-their-cap threads of soloing/duo'ing high end challenge content yet when scrutiny is applied, you start to see it took them a considerable amount of time in many cases.  For them, it wasnt about time but just simply about downing hard content.

 

 

 

7. Hopefully you're starting to see that there is a lot more entailing what you need to consider and as well as moving in a different frame of thinking of what you're currently considering.  No one has made or done extensive testing of a plethora of AV encounters(and including their missions) in solo terms nor in group terms where the specifics of the groups are factored either.   This is just simply because its pretty tedious amounts of effort to do so and in which any months later changes to the game(as there's always something with this team wanting to make their mark with hubric progression creep) that can slightly or even dramatically alter previously tested results.

 

8.  The "you" factor.   How you play factors much into some of the considerations for choices/builds/strats.  As an arbitrary example, I've seen so many different fire farmers using forum cookie cutter builds and observed how widely their effectivity in their influence per hour is (active farmers mind you..... passive/AFK farming tends to be less varied for obvious reasons).

 

 

 

 

And the list can go on really.   You're going to need to spend more time digesting more information, cross referencing such things, use mids to make tenative builds, and then going on the beta server to actually insta level/gear out  toons to then effectively test in av fights/missions for your needs.   That's obviously a lot of work but if you're looking to min/max/make effective a scrapper for your goals for all for all of that, its going to be the best way to ensure your goals are more likely to be met.  Worst thing for your to do is take some build from here, level it up, to only then find out it was a bust and all that effort was a discouraging waste(unless you are the type of person to appreciate the hike up the mountain vs looking from the summit).

 

Best of luck.

 

 

 

 

[Azari]

Can’t go wrong with energy melee

[SomeGuy]

I've seen my times referenced a few times. I just do those as a control. That data is for me, but I obviously share it. Also why my times are AVERAGES. Some of the faster times shared by others are NOT averages. The DB/BIO time shared above? That is definitely not an average and I've gotten multiple runs that low and even lower. I actually toss those times out for my averages. Did I mention my times are averages? 😄

 

@Sanguinesun brings up some really good points. Example: Mynx is going to be an absolute joke and Diabolique is going to be extremely annoying (protip...don't chase. Just wait.) Dominatrix is only going to get tickled.

 

Some sets are going to be a lot easier, some trickier, and some are flat out garbage. But you won't need an uber DPS primary. I solo-ed all the TFs in the game with a DM/BIO. Yea, not great DPS but it is a really fun set to me. And yes, it has some neat tools, I didn't have any of those in the build. I say this to highlight you won't need crazy DPS.

Edited April 30 by SomeGuy

[aethereal]

I killed some 20 or so AVs with an ice/bio stalker (not scrapper).  A few comments:

1. People make way too big a deal of taunt.  I did this on a stalker.  It was fine.
2. In general, you do not need to absolutely max your ST DPS to do a fine job killing AVs.  It's easy for a scrapper/stalker to get above the regeneration rate of an AV, and it's largely impossible to get such high DPS that you can race it and kill it before it kills you.  You need to be able to survive ~indefinitely against an AV in order to kill it, and you need to be able to stay above its regeneration rate, and if you're a little less than top DPS, it'll take longer but you'll be no less successful.  There are a few AVs who are particularly tough and you may want to eke out every possible bit of DPS, but that's not at all the majority of them.
3. The weakness of Bio is its lack of DDR.  AVs who had defense debuffs were very hard for me, and usually I could only do them with purple insps to avoid cascading defense failure.
4. Enjoy Ghost Widow.

Edited May 1 by aethereal

[SomeGuy]

1 hour ago, aethereal said:

I killed some 20 or so AVs with an ice/bio stalker (not scrapper).  A few comments:

1. Enjoy Ghost Widow.

 

I can't do more than one laugh emoji at a post. This disappoints me.